A momentary silence fell. “We seem to have run out of possible sources for whatever is blinding our systems,” Tulev finally said. “What other enemies does this fleet face?”
“Do you mean besides our own headquarters and government?” Badaya asked sarcastically.
Geary stared at him without speaking for a few seconds. “Tanya, you say your code monkeys are absolutely certain that there’s nothing in our systems that isn’t supposed to be there?”
“Yes, sir,” she replied forcefully. “Not unless it’s something totally new and unusual, using principles totally different from anything we’ve used or considered or encountered or imagined up to now.”
“Captain Tulev? Captain Badaya? Do the system security people on your ships concur in that?”
Both of them nodded. “I wish we still had Captain Cresida here to address the problem,” Tulev added. “But I do not think even she would have any answers.”
“There goes another HuK,” Desjani said. “He was obviously running from something that caught him. I’ve never been in a fight where I can only see one side. Admiral, what are you driving at?”
“I used to read old detective stories,” Geary said. “Really old stuff. In one of them, the detective said that once you eliminate all other possibilities, whatever is left must be the answer. I never forgot that. And now, it seems we’ve eliminated the possibility of unauthorized software messing up our systems and even wiping out images of these attackers from Syndic videos that we’re intercepting. What’s left?”
“Authorized software?” Tulev asked, a rare amount of surprise inflecting his words.
“Yes. Something that’s supposed to be there that’s causing this and isn’t tripping any security screens because it’s not a worm or a virus or anything else. It’s part of the official system software.”
“Why would fleet headquarters do such a thing?” Tulev said.
Badaya began to answer, but Geary spoke quickly to cut him off. “Maybe they didn’t. Maybe the government didn’t. Maybe certain offices or secret programs did it, and a lot of high-ranking people don’t even know it was done. Maybe part of the government did it, maybe segments of fleet headquarters. If my guess is true, that is. Get your people looking.”
“For what?” Badaya asked, plaintive now.
Tulev answered with dispassionate logic. “We do not know under what name or subsystem the software can be found, but we do know what it must be doing. If we know what it must do, then we can search for software that carries out such functions, no matter where it is located.”
“Exactly,” Geary said. “While we search, I’m going to take the task force toward the jump point for Kalixa, but only at point zero five light speed.”
If he had felt powerless while observing events at Midway, here at Indras Geary felt a sense of bizarre incomprehension watching a literally one-sided battle as the Alliance task force swung along the outer edges of the star system.
“Admiral, we have a call from the Syndics. An emergency comm routing. They must be using some alternate command systems.”
That would hardly be surprising given the amount of damage they could see to the regular command systems at Indras. “Bounce it to me.”
The CEO Geary saw was not Yamada. Neither was she immaculately dressed and displaying a false, calculated expression. She looked, in fact, like someone who had just had her normal routine bombed out from under her. “This is an act of war! The Alliance has blatantly and openly attacked us without any warning, causing immense property damage and loss of life! I demand that you cease all attacks and withdraw from this star system immediately!”
Desjani exhaled in exasperation. “She thinks we’re attacking them? Can’t she tell we’re not firing, and that this attack was well under way before we even got here?”
“I wish I knew who or what was attacking them,” Geary said. He tapped reply. “To the leaders of Indras, this is Admiral Geary of the Alliance fleet. We are not attacking you. None of my ships have fired on you, nor will they unless attacked themselves. We are currently trying to determine the identity of the ships that are attacking Indras, but I swear on my honor that they are not under my command and not subject to my orders. To the honor of our ancestors, Geary, out.”
Over the next hour, there were signs that the attack was tapering off as fewer targets were destroyed. “Captain,” Lieutenant Castries said, “from the pattern of the attacks, it looks like the attacking ships may be withdrawing toward the jump point for Kalixa.”
“Could they be a threat to Atalia?” Geary wondered. “And will they stop at Atalia or go on to Alliance space?”
Desjani kept her voice very low. “If we can’t see them because of something that official sources in the Alliance did, that implies—”
“I know what it implies. I also know that even if that is true, I can’t assume those ships aren’t a threat to the Alliance as long as I don’t know who they are.”
Hours later, the same female Syndic CEO replied to Geary, her suit slightly neater and her expression much angrier. Whatever emergency bunker she occupied was overcrowded, filled with both people and a sense of shock that Geary could feel even through the medium of the message. “You must think us fools. The attackers are withdrawing toward Alliance space. I have no idea how many people have died today! Your government had better be prepared to answer for this!”
Geary looked down, his jaw tight enough to hurt. “If this was the work of someone in the Alliance, they just bought us a lot more trouble then we had before.”
Desjani sounded more subdued than usual as she replied. “My guys think they’ve found something. They’re seeing what they can do with it.”
Geary’s display rippled. As it did so, two new contacts suddenly appeared for a moment near the jump point for Kalixa. “What was that? Are they gone?”
“They probably jumped,” Desjani confirmed. “We’re lucky we caught a glimpse of them. My code monkeys think that they’ve found the answer. There’s at least one subroutine hidden in part of the sensor-system software that seems to be selectively blocking some detection data. It’s— What the hell happened to the images of those ships we spotted before they jumped?”
“Captain, they’re… gone,” Lieutenant Castries said, sounding horrified and mystified. “They vanished from the displays, and I can’t find any traces of them in system records.”
“Looks like there’s more wonky software to find,” Geary said.
“It does, doesn’t it?” Desjani looked as angry as he could recall ever seeing her. “What my guys found is definitely human work and definitely part of one of the regular system software updates. That’s how they found it so fast, by focusing on the updates instead of going through the bajillion lines of code on these ships line by line. They are pretty sure it ties in with integrated subroutines in other system software throughout the ship, which this disappearing imagery just confirmed. They are trying to run those down now.”
Geary stared at his display. “Someone officially inserted subroutines into our ship’s software that prevent us from seeing those dark ships.” He didn’t feel triumphant at his guess having been proven right.
“Yes, sir. We have to assume the software on every Alliance warship has the same subroutines.” Desjani bit her lip, thinking. “What the enigmas did must have given someone in the Alliance an idea. They took that idea from the enigmas and ran with it.”